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All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsThe indomitable LFG chat channel
by Mike Schramm 
Oct 30th 2009 at 4:00PM
But citywide still isn't enough for a lot of players -- some are saying that they want the channel to be worldwide. Ghostcrawler himself shows up in that thread and says a worldwide LFG channel would be nuts. And he's right: way back in the day when it was worldwide, it was "mass chaos," like a Barrens from everywhere. So why are people so tied to it? Blizzard seems to be missing a major way people used the LFG channel.
Here's the scenario: it's Saturday afternoon. I have my level 80 hunter around, and wouldn't mind running a Heroic instance for some dungeon rep or a little badge grinding. But my more pressing need at the moment is to level up my paladin, and so under the current LFG here's what I do: get on my pally, log into LFG on some instance I don't really want to run, like Sunken Temple, just so I can listen in on the LFG chat while I level. Eventually someone jumps into the LFG chat, asks for a DPS for Heroic Halls of Lightning. I send a tell from my pally saying my hunter would be perfect, they say great, I log, and I'm off and running. In other words (in this case, Valdesta's), I'm lurking.
Cross-realm groups, of course, throws a wrench in that whole plan, because even with a citywide channel, there's no way for me to know that someone else on a different server wants my hunter to run a Heroic unless I'm logged in and waiting on my hunter. Blizzard's gamble, of course, is that with a cross-realm system, there will be a much bigger pool of dungeon runners to run instances with, and instead of waiting around on my pally until I find a group, I'll just choose an instance for my hunter, get into one right away, and run whatever I want any time.
But of course, in practice, I doubt that'll happen -- especially if I'm playing at off times or off instances, it's hard to believe there will always be a full group ready to do what I want to do. Which means I'm back to standing around in a city on my hunter, when I'd really rather be leveling my paladin.
So what's the fix? Honestly, I don't know. The ideal would be a cross-realm LFG channel, but that seems either impossible or really tough to implement from Blizzard's side. Maybe there could be some kind of automated channel to join, that would broadcast which groups are forming from other realms, or maybe a reservation system, where even people on alts could "sign up" for a group and then have 30 seconds to log onto a main or lose their spot.
Or maybe it's all much ado over nothing -- maybe Blizzard's new system will work great, and everyone will have the group they want every time they need it. But I'm thinking that a little while after patch 3.3 goes live, we'll see the LFG channel back in action even outside of cities. If history has taught us anything about LFG, it's that people who are looking for a group really, really want to chat about it, even when they're sitting on alts or doing something else.
Filed under: Patches, Analysis / Opinion, Odds and ends, Blizzard, Instances, Raiding
Reader Comments (Page 3 of 3)
Valt Oct 30th 2009 5:41PM
So LFG chat becomes new trade chat that people prolly wont use?
Im currently logged into wow and trade is like this:
LFM, LFG, LF1M, LFG ,LFM, LFG, LF2M, LFG, "wts epic gem", LFG, LF TANK, LF HEALER.
also as offtopic, I wonder how they do this at europe. Currently most battlegroups are merged with german, russian or french servers... they better not just copy paste american code and get "non-english" server people in pugs call it days =/
np, blizzard doesnt read EU forums so it doesnt matter.
Cataca Oct 30th 2009 5:55PM
I've tossed this idea around with a few friends and it sounds pretty solid.
Here's what I'm thinking:
They don't want a global LFG channel because it usually devolves into madness as people use it for just a global chat channel, making it useless.
A some what good idea, but something that Blizz wont do, is have the LFG tool throw you into the LFG channel even if your not in a city. It would still allow those that wish to not see the channel /leave and allow for people to carry on about their day while browsing who is looking for what. But it still has the potential to devolve because it's easy for people to join. And it allows people that are just AFK in a city (where most of the chatters are) to broadcast their bile across the server.
So that led to the idea of having two separate LFG channels. One for major city LFG and one for the LFG tool. Using this system the chatters wouldn't be able to bug the whole server at once. You could be out questing etc and browsing the LFGtool channel for something you want to do and it would get the LFG spam out of the Trade channel.
Cataca Oct 30th 2009 6:00PM
Maybe even put a timer on how long you must wait in the LFG tool before you can have access to the LFGtool chat. (Something like 5min etc)
hp1 Oct 30th 2009 5:57PM
The real problem, for me, is going to be that my lower level alts won't be able to join LFG effectively. I can hardly queue a lvl 12 pali to heal VOA25 or whatever.
dave Oct 30th 2009 6:57PM
"PUG's" - glad to see not even Blizzard have mastered possessive pronouns.
PUGs PUGs PUGs
vazhkatsi Oct 30th 2009 6:36PM
i'm really really confused right now. there already is a worldwide LFG channel. would someone explain to me why i have to sit in a city and do nothing to lfg now instead of being able to do dailies?
Frank Oct 30th 2009 6:44PM
On my server people spam the trade channel to form groups. I always assumed this was the norm.
Drork Oct 30th 2009 6:47PM
Solution is being able to LFG for a toon you are not currently on. So your leveling your paladin but your hunter is in LFG when the group forms it pops up a message X Heroic for Y char if you click the accept rather than porting you to the instance it logs you over and ports you in.
brianem Oct 30th 2009 7:03PM
The solution is easy, leave the channel alone. I currently get in Zone: Icecrown regardless of what character I'm on, so I can see opportunities for any of my alts, ESPECIALLY RAIDS. It's going to make it much harder to get a raid group nixing this channel with no ability to que up alts and mains alike.
Pemberton Oct 30th 2009 7:08PM
the global LFG channel wasn't a bad idea - it was just everyone abused it as a serverwide chat line with folks flirting and arguing in it more than posting for groups. Some people I put on ignore back then are still on ignore.
It would have made more sense if they would have had only preset things you could say in it, selected from a menu like: [instance] looking for [role] But not having the ability to type anything you want in it.
I know there are people who are clamoring for it to come back for ease of instances, but I know there are other people who just miss being able to chat with everyone in your faction at the same time. And I don't want to go back to people hollering someones name in LFG the moment they log on, etc.
Zinn Oct 30th 2009 7:14PM
I'd say there is two ways to think about people abusing the world-wide channels.
Either - If it happens so often, maybe it's something people want out of the game. Then why remove it? The game should satisfy the players no matter what they want. At least that is how you make money from something. Give people what they want.
Or (and this is my take on it) - trade is spammed like this all the time. That a chat is limited to the cities clearly hasn't limited the amount of trolls. Ignore and report spam work well for this, so I really don't see why the people who try to ruin something will succeed by having a tool that most people enjoy removed.
Blizzard have the wrong approach on this. I think they just want us to waste time standing around doing nothing while waiting for a group to form. The same reason that hearthstone has a cd and other useless timeconsuming mechanics.
Dbodinem Oct 30th 2009 7:58PM
I'm not so sure that the new system will make it easier to find groups.
As it stands, I usually queue up for the Dungeon I want to run on the toon I want to run it and go do dailies. If I don't get invited by the time I finish a run of dailies (about 200 gold worth), I log out, switch to another and do the process over again. Usually I get the run I want (provided its the Heroic Daily) within that time period.
I've pretty much given up on running anything but the daily heroic because the groups just don't make fast enough.
I never really used the LFG channel.
Perhaps the random function will fix this, but I can't stand when we go through a period of repetitive daily heroics like the last week or so: H DtK, H AK, H Nexus, H AK, H AK, H DtK, H ToC, H Nexus, H DtK, H ToC and today finally H UP. Its not just emblems, though that's important, but running instances that I like or haven't run on a particular toon. In my newly dinged 80 Warlock's case, on his 3rd day (game day not actual day) he was lucky enough to get in a group that ran H DtK, H AK, and H Nexus so when I saw the string of dailies of stuff he'd already run I was bored. I guess I'll finish up some weird quests and do dailies cause I still have to get epic flying on 4 alts.
So if the random function makes me suffer through repetitive runs of Heroic Oculus, I'll scream.
Bombaata Oct 30th 2009 8:13PM
Make it global but put a timer on each time you can speak, you can only speak in the channel every 2 minutes or 3 minutes even. Thatll cut down on the /anal BS that itll turn into if its global.. The old LFG was horrible because of this and telling people to /quit the channel because they are trying to use it for its intention and not to hear chuck norris jokes is simply retarded. Timers I say TIMERS!!!
slunk Oct 30th 2009 10:13PM
I want to see the LFG tool work for old world raids. I really need to get rep from MC, but it's a pain putting together a MC raid every week.
Frantyk Oct 31st 2009 2:07AM
Wouldn't an easy solution be to allow anyone in the world to "hear" LFG chat, but restrict anyone not in a city from writing in it? That way the chatter would still only come from people in cities, but people outside of town would still be able to "browse" the channel for opportunities.
cyfoeth Oct 31st 2009 3:32AM
There's a reason there's way more DPS than anything else out there.... the majority of players don't always group.
When a new player joins WoW, they might just be used to soloing (or they might not know anything at all), and Blizzard has made it very easy to solo your way up to Northrend. The fact is, you don't NEED a group for 90% of the old world content. You don't need a group for a good chunk of the BC content, and even a good chunk of the Northrend content.
So, if you don't have a static group, you're likely to be soloing quite a bit of the time. Would you rather solo a tank, a healer, or a DPS? Most people feel the DPS classes are faster and more "fun", when soloing.
Once you "win" the questing/grinding game of 1 to 80, you move on to running instances. At that point, all three archetypes are needed to succeed, but what have most people played up to get to 80? DPS.
Improving the LFG interface will help, but to really make it work well (and make soloing less desireable), they should have public groups like the Warhammer folk do. That is, you mark your group as public and people can just join at will. You mark it private, they have to be invited (like now). That means people wanting to group don't have to wait to be picked, they just wait for an opening or start a new open group and go.
Bloodtrip Oct 31st 2009 4:07AM
I honestly think it is the way players go about building a group... 99% of the time (on Eldre'Thalas, and on Silver Hand) I see players saying "DPS LFG H HoS"... or what ever the flavor of class/instance is... Myself, as a hunter, I ALWAYS say, "LF 2 DPS, 1 Tank/Heals H VH" (or what ever the instance) and with in SECONDS, i get like 5 pst's for DPS, 30-60 sec later, a PST from a tank, and no longer than 3-5 min i get a healer...
Try it... ask in Trade/LFG channel what you need for YOUR grp, and not what grp you want to join.
Coldbear Oct 31st 2009 8:29AM
good article, made me think a bit.
I hate global chat channels with a passion - never been in trade since I figured out you could get out of it, but there needs to be a way to queue while on an alt
reillymckelvey Oct 31st 2009 1:28PM
What not create a world-wide channel for all the jackasses to use so it keeps them out of general, trade, and LFG? That way I have only one channel to turn off and I can actually use the channels for what they are intended instead of turning them off all the time and/or stop managing huge ignore lists.
Irmie Nov 1st 2009 10:39AM
The simple solution, as it seems to me, is just to open all instances and raids as choices in the drop down menu. Or let it be like a profession where you can type in the search field to find the instance name you *really* want, then leave a comment in the comment field with relevant data (ie: 80 hunter lfg can be your comment if you are logged in on your pally).
I've noticed on a couple servers I play on in the past few months the LFG channel is sparsely populated, and trade is more often used for finding group mates.